Harvard creates cyborg flesh that’s half man, half machine

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Bioengineers at Harvard University have created the first examples of cyborg tissue: Neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels that are interwoven by nanowires and transistors.

These cyborg tissues are half living cells, half electronics. As far as the cells are concerned, they’re just normal cells that behave normally — but the electronic side actually acts as a sensor network, allowing a computer to interface directly with the cells. In the case of cyborg heart tissue, the researchers have already used the embedded nanowires to measure the contractions (heart rate) of the cells.

To create cyborg flesh, you start with a three-dimensional scaffold that encourages cells to grow around them. These scaffolds are generally made of collagen, which makes up the connective tissue in almost every animal. The Harvard engineers basically took normal collagen, and wove nanowires and transistors into the matrix to create nanoelectric scaffolds (nanoES). The neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels were then grown as normal, creating cyborg tissue with a built-in sensor network.

Cardiac cells, with a nanoelectroic electrode highlighted

So far the Havard team has mostly grown rat tissues, but they have also succeeded in growing a 1.5-centimeter (0.6in) cyborg human blood vessel. They’ve also only used the nanoelectric scaffolds to read data from the cells — but according to lead researcher Charles Lieber, the next step is to find a way of talking to the individual cells, to “wire up tissue and communicate with it in the same way a biological system does.”

A computer chip, containing a sample of nanoES tissue

Suffice it to say, if you can use a digital computer to read and write data to your body’s cells, there are some awesome applications. If you need a quick jolt of adrenaline, you would simply tap a button on your smartphone, which is directly connected to your sympathetic nervous system. You could augment your existing physiology with patches — a patch of nanoelectric heart cells, for example, that integrates with your heart and reports back if you experience any problems. When we eventually put nanobots into our bloodstream, small pulses of electricity emitted by the cells could be used as guidance to damaged areas. In the case of blood vessels and other organs, the nanoelectric sensor network could detect if there’s inflammation, blockage, or tumors.

Realistically, though, we’re a long way away from such applications. In the short term, though, these cyborg tissues could be used to create very accurate organs-on-a-chip — lab-grown human organs that are encased within computer chips and then used to test drugs or substance toxicity, without harming a single bunny or bonobo.

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It’s FOR SCIENCE, dude. What’s to ask for? Nobody ASKED Einstein to come up with general relativity, or Pasteur to come up with penicilin – they just DID.

John McColley

I think you mean Alexander Fleming. Pasteur came up with pasteurization which kills bacteria by heating and cooling.

Adam Ragg

You’re quite right, that was a pretty schoolboy error. I apologise to my friends and family for making such a blatant cock-up. Having said that, I stand by the spirit in which it was said: science isn’t about fulfilling a contract or manufacturing something for the service industry – it’s about providing answers to questions we didn’t even think to ask, and I’m sure there are plenty of people looking for skin grafts or prosthetics that will find these developments very interesting indeed.

Bruce Cunningham

Thats okay Adam, Im not a big fan of Fleming, I’m allergic to his Penicillin. But makes me wonder why we don’t call it Flemicillin?

Adam Ragg

So is my sister, oddly enough. And I suspect they only do that for periodic elements.

What about evolution of the spirit, it just seems to me, the human race is advancing in the wrong direction, it’s just going to split both ways, good and bad like everything. Half the planet will be rich and cyborgs, and the other half will go hungry. It all seems kind of crazy to me. They can create this in a lab, but they can’t feed people.

Leif Burrow

Yes.. scientific and technological progress are worthless.. only feeding people is worthwhile. Our ancestors should have kept on hunting with sharpened stones and gathering berries until everyone was fed! Oh.. wait.. sharpened stones are technology… ok.. we should all be catching wild game and gathering berries with our bare hands!

cheezy

He’s talking about evolution of human responsibility, you ass. There is no for further advancement when all the food goes to the same people. With present technology, we have enough food to feed everyone on the planet already. We are our own biggest enemy.

If we feed everyone do you lnow what that means? People that live in huts suddenly have population growth and no schools nor people to fund a growing population education. You have to realize shit is rough and just be happy you were born where you are. Things could be worse for you. America may beable to feed everyone but that doesn’t mean we can afford to educate all these 3rdclearly world offspring. Its simple fucking science. How fast should we kill our ecosystem or better yet just make more corn to kill our people but pretend like we gave a shit in the first place by feeding them. You are asking for a gobal change that the people of the world simply couldnt afford.

Population growth is highest in the most impoverished regions of the globe. The industrial societies are almost all below replacement rates of population growth, i.e. populations are actually shrinking in the richest parts of the word. Nothing like educating women and giving them access to birth control to reverse population growth you silly malthusian.

And we could educate everyone (free 4 year college) and more at a fraction of the cost of the military spending used for bombing/invading other countries that our own generals admit decreases U.S. security.

Well, bioethics aside for a moment, why do you think we don’t have free electricity? Because technology, at least economically, only advances if it is economically viable. Tesla tried to give us all FREE ENERGY nearly a hundred years ago, and people called him a crackpot because back then science didn’t matter unless it either made the patent holders lots of money or helped kill people more quickly and efficiently.

I agree, it seems that the more we advance, the more the socio-economic stance between people will become distinguishable, and most of this technological advancement will most likely be at the rich’s disposal. This will potentially lead to an all-time high in violence.

I think that there is a big conspiracy going on here and that attempts are being made to turn people into robots , but that it´s being done underground. I read about it on a psychic´s website where references were made to human testing flowing in this direction. The idea is to create consciousness – free killing machines. It´s not working because consciousness is revolting.

Jillxz

The human race is at the same point they were when they started to build the Tower of Babel. And we know what God did. I’m leaving this in His capable hands.

Adam Ragg

There’s no such thing as a “wrong way” to evolve – it either works and the species survives, or it doesn’t and they don’t.

Leif Burrow

“
you would simply tap a button on your smartphone”
Really? I would hope that if this advances enough to do that you wouldn’t need to tap a button!

well I read about in a UFO book known as Secret Life and a few others how UFO abductees felt that people their abductors didn´t want to wake up during a procedure or abduction would be simply switched off. They´d ask their relatives to wake up while being fully conscious but it´d be of no use.

John Smith

I’d like to think we’d have better technology than smartphones by then.

the first application i will download on my new iBody is Human Flight with built-in wings!!!!

ScottR

Why does man thinks he can create biology better then nature.We need to realize that when we eventually bring things like this (and nanobots as mentioned in this article) to market there are massive changes to human biology over a relatively quick time that we cannot anticipate. Our western diet is a example of this, I do not believe anyone anticipated the massive growth in the average american males and females weight from the 1950’s until now as a result of processed foods , but the implications on our health care system and nation as a whole are immeasurably negative and that is as a result of a relatively small change of diet not the ability to control every aspect of ones body. Human nature tells me that things like this are used and abused by humans to the point that certain systems in our bodies no longer produce what they were intended for ie testosterone function and insulin.

William Brown

The Harvard engineers basically
took normal collagen, and wove nanowires and transistors into the matrix
to create nanoelectric scaffolds (nanoES).

“An abomination..this guy will create their own human like cyborg from bio lab genetic research of rats tissues and human blood tissues combination..definitely they want to duplicate the composition and structures of a real humans complex biological system..with modern scientific approach and DNA splicing and scientific modification techniques to be enhanced by today’s state of the art technology..they might redirect the course of human evolution and advancement in a very wrong..twisted way…and idea…”

if with this technology we set steps up so that we as a people grow spiritually and mentally and it was just given to all that want it then there would be no problem we could have great doctors and scientist in maybe 15 years or less with the cyborg tech we could educate everyone equally then the big problem would be where are we all going to work this advancement would not be any different from the others yes some people would mis use it but not all just it would be just like a tv and video games you use them to much and you will get fat and lase so if we regulat what they can do and how much they can do for use what’s the big deal save money on school and get a job faster

Steve Son

It’s not the ethics behind human augmentation that concern me, but the prospect of turning life itself into a form property or even legal tender. There is too much to gain from this and that’s what terrifies me.

What BS!! This bioweapon has been secretly tested on millions of people who now suffer terribly from the nightmare called Morgellons, which the DOD-controlled media labels as psychosis. Anyone who had nanowires coming out of their skin WOULD feel crazy, but the demented ones are the evil developers. Look up Joni Mitchell and her battle with this hideous biological atrocity and don’t believe this is “new” for a minute.

Bruce Cunningham

So does this mean one day a headline will read “Man gets drunk, passes out, wets the bed and electrocutes himself”? :)

Guest

its a everyday thang,

Един Бећировски

My mental be stressed on my pistol my only untensil for cheddar, nowlooks like it some people will be like ”immortal”

I am a Newbie here, please help me to learn about this.
Thank before It.

jagunso

What about when that THING dies, does it die only alf of it , becoming
one thing the type of living dead or deading live?And what about when it
need reparation, must it be taken to the machanic , doctor,vet or what ?

Freeadsman

Interesting that science moves closer to films. Who remembers Cyborg with JVD??

jerome snyder

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Brad Arnold

3D print an organ, but with this improved design. I bet we are a long way from elective organ replacement, but if you have to get a new one anyway, then why not improve it’s design?

Fabricio Paes

That’s the trick if you can’t install in a fully developed tissue, you just have to grow your tissue in the machine web!! ((But Metal-Nanowires are not compatible with life, and will give fail readings! They must use carbon nanotubes or something less oxidative))..

Schuyler Thorpe

Great. Microsoft will lay claim to this technology and force everyone to download their updates in order to keep everything running and virus free. (Not too mention hacker free as well.)

Kevin Crosby

We’re only “a long way away from such applications” because civilians prefer to spend one billion dollars per weekend on NFL sports than on education, science, medicine, and taking care of fellow humans. Basically, heterosexual males prefer watching big, sweaty men play with their balls rather than help others. For example, when Seattle King County Metro buses needed funding to avoid drastic cuts to service, what did local billionaire Steve Ballmer do? He paid three times the asking price for an out-of-state basketball team instead.

When I brought it up on a bus, the driver said Ballmer should be able to spend his money any way he chooses. Imagine if I had the cure for death but refused to share it with anyone. That wouldn’t be very nice now, would it?

I’ve been involved with cybernetics since early childhood. Dr. José Delgado’s remote-controlled animals in the 1960s intrigue me as does the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Acoustic Kitty projects. Whether they ever declassify the human Acoustic Kiddy programs is up to you. There’s still tons of pedophiles to catch, but sporting events are huge human trafficking conventions, and there’s millions of tons of perverts running around free. Police stings are too few and far between, and again, people would rather whine and complain about society than actually do anything to better it. And then they take their children on vacation to places that hire Nazis like medical monster Heinz Haber? Silly humans!

So after half a century of developing cybernetic technology in secret, imagine that what civilians are reading in the paper now is the Model D prototype of the upcoming Model T automobile to be sold to the public, while in secret there’s Teslas running around fighting crime.

George Orwells repressive “1984” may not have come to pass, but Aldous Huxley’s hypersexualized “Brave New World” is sweeping up children younger and younger while the television ratings profit from it. Education is being increasingly dumbed down, and most people still seem to think humans have only the five senses Aristotle proposed more than 2300 years ago, though some may mention a spooky “sixth sense” they’re not supposed to talk about. At the same time, humans are so ignorant many believe they only use 10% of their brains, though that may be figuratively true for the 42% of the United States who have been scammed by that Australian con-man Ken Ham to believe that Earth is only a few thousand years old. No wonder the Nigerian fraudulent emails still work!

In a society of majority rule, the F, D, and C students outnumber the smart kids, and you don’t find many smart kids going into politics. But politicians are the ones who determine your future, and politicians have decided that you will succomb to death and taxes. Meanwhile, my friends involved with cybernetics in the 1980s showed me a huge stack of stock portfolios, the first few alone worth hundreds of millions of dollars each. We invest in people rather than tax them.

Remember, the primary goal of cybernetic technology is to upload our minds into external devices and live forever. It might be best to think of it as a man-made afterlife. And as an afterlife, evil people will suffer eternity in Hell. Good people are going to love it, though. And as for the masses, they’ll go back to school to learn how to be good.

So be nice or else!

In the meantime, I strongly suggest reading “Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society” by José M.R. Delgado, M.D., and take a college course in Cybernetic Anthropology while you’re at it. You might also want to bring yourself up to speed regarding quantum computing.

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